


we were made to soar

by WhirlyBird70



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, D's dont have wings, Drabble Collection, Gen, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, anyway luffy will fight gods several time in this fic i think just like canon!!!, as in related to celestial dragons being 'gods' and d's being 'god slayers' because that slaps, but its good to give warning!!, everyone else does, i think, its called irony like that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25156501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhirlyBird70/pseuds/WhirlyBird70
Summary: fly with me forevermore-Funny, how those who challenge gods, defy them, destroy them are unable to fly to the heavens themselves.Funny, how little boys who want freedom the most are land bound and chained to only stare at the sky with longing.Funny, how you can always tell who is going to change the world however small without even looking in their eye.Funny, how D’s, (god slayers, destroyers, enemies of the heavens, fallen, bound, and world changing), have no wings to chase freedom with.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 94





	we were made to soar

Funny, how those who challenge gods, defy them, _destroy them_ are unable to fly to the heavens themselves.

Funny, how little boys who want freedom the most are land bound and chained to only stare at the sky with longing.

Funny, how you can always tell who is going to change the world however small without even looking in their eye.

Funny, how _D’s_ , god slayers, destroyers, enemies of the heavens, fallen, bound, and world changing, have no wings to chase freedom with.

-

Makino’s wings are soft and pretty, green in color and small enough to navigate the confines of the tiny bar. They aren’t made for long distance flight, but are waterproof and well enough for short flights by the shore.

They aren’t impressive, not like the sweeping hawks of visiting sailors or the sprawling colorful wings of the merchants from the city but –

That doesn’t stop Luffy from staring at her wings with _envy_ sometimes, because what would it be like, to fly?

He sighs from his place at the bar, staring at her wings tucked neatly against her back, and ignores the odd looks from the patrons _with_ wings.

The wings protrude gently from her shoulder blades, bared in the backless summer dress she’s wearing. They look natural, the gentle green feathers running ever so slightly from her wings to the spread of her spine, glinting prettily in the light of the bar.

Luffy’s own back looks nothing like hers. There are no feathers or strong shoulders, or bared skin. Nothing crests his head every so often, nothing twitches behind him helping him keep balance when he stumbles.

(He falls, he falls, he falls, because if he cannot rise the only other option is to fall.)

His back is smooth with only the bumps of a roughhousing child.

He has no wings.

He cannot fly, no matter how badly he wants to.

And – it _sucks_ , sucks that Makino has to carry him everywhere, sucks that he can’t reach some of the towering plaza’s without help, sucks that he’s treated as _odd_ or _unnatural_ , or _worthless._

His only consolation is that Gramps doesn’t have wings either, and Gramps is still strong.

(He tells him stories, at night, about emperors and admirals who could sweep armies away with a single wing flap.

_But you and I,_ Garp had joked, _have to do it the hands on way aye? With fists!_

There’s a reason Garp’s title is Garp the Fist and not the Winged.)

“Luffy,” Makino interrupts his moping, will you go see what the commotion is outside? See if there’s a new ship on the docks?”

Something to do!

“Meat?”

“When you get back.”

“Okay!”

Luffy hops off his stool and rushes out the door, running faster than people flying overhead to get to the docks. There’s shouting there, grumbling that’s more than the usual fanfare of a merchant ship pulling in. Something thrums in Luffy’s chest as his feet slap against the pavement, sprinting faster so he can _see._

He turns the corner, and a flag flies brightly in the wind, red stripes blazoned like blood across the jolly roger.

A _pirate ship!_

(It looks a little like freedom, the way men strung themselves up in the nettings, ignoring their wings entirely. It looks a little like adventure, a little like a promise, a little like hope.

The men do not fly as the villagers flap around but keep their tattered yet beautiful wings tucked in close, like Makino at the bar, as they moved chests and bottles around deck, tying ropes and cheering to one another.

Who needs to fly, to soar, all the time, when a ship is as good as flight?

(Luffy would do that anyway, if he had a chance.))

Before Luffy takes another step, a man appears at the docks. Theres a strawhat upon his head, and a loose cape tucked between his wings. His hair is a vibrant red, scars matching the stripes on the jolly roger crossing his face.

_The captain,_ Luffy knows instinctively, _for who else could it be?_

The man smiles, laughs, and spreads his wings, taking to the sky as if being on land was too burdensome to bear.

Luffy’s eyes turn to _stars._ The man’s wings are bright red and brown, regal in their coloring, with wingspan larger than any Luffy had ever seen and a skill in their movements rare in this little backwater village.

The man has already risen high above the town, higher than the ship he just came from, high enough to see everything in the village.

(What does it look like from up there, with nothing chaining you down?)

His silhouette is cast by the sun for the briefest of moments, before the pirate captain _swoops_ into a sharp dive.

Somebody screams, something like _watch out_ or _an attack!_ But Luffy’s to enraptured to care – that is, until the man lands with a heavy hit right in front of him, slamming into a kneel as his wings cast a shockwave of air, blowing Luffy’s hair and the pirate’s own hat back, dust stirring in the streets.

“Boo.” The man smirks, and Luffy punches him right in the face for attempting to scare him.

“Bastard!”

“Dahahahaha!”

-

Shanks is the best thing that has ever happened to Luffy, him and his crew. He’s strong enough to take Luffy above the clouds, let him dip his hands in salty sea spray as the water whips past them, strong enough to let Luffy taste the _freedom_ that each and every one of those with wings take for granted.

It’s _exhilarating_ but not as much as what Shanks tells him next.

_The Pirate King,_ Shanks starts with in the bar one day, a raucous party reaching its end around them, _is the freest man alive – or was at any rate._

Luffy is tucked in under his arm has Shank’s says this, something quiet and alluring in his words that takes all of Luffy’s attention.

_He’s dead now, my captain that is – but… he was free, til the very end._

Luffy knows the tale of the Pirate King, of Gold Roger, but not like this. Not the parts that do not speak of treasure like the _One Piece,_ but of things far more valuable than that. The parts that spoke of adventure and freedom and _life_ are always overshadowed by the beginning of an era.

But this?

This is so much _more._

_And Luffy? Roger didn’t have a single feather on him. He couldn’t fly, didn’t have any wings._

Yet, goes the unspoken words, he was **_free_** _._

A dream starts that day in the murmurs of a bar, from one old captain to a little kid. It’s not a promise yet, not a truth yet, not started yet, but it will be soon.

The world changes, in the blink of an eye, with the promise of _freedom._

_(Of flight.)_

-

(Here’s a secret, one that you know, and I know, but the world doesn’t know.

There’s no such thing as the _Fall_ , the thing from legends that dictates the beginning of _demons,_ of _fallen,_ of _D,_ no such thing as righteous angels casting other out and stripping them of flight for eternity. There’s no such thing as the legends told in the regulated history books, no such thing as ‘demons’ and ‘angels’ here, because the truth is so much more.

There’s no such thing at all, because the only thing gods fear is disbelief.

And those without wings do not believe in _gods_.

(They chose, with indomitable will, to go without flight so long ago, to defy the heavens that chained them.

You know this, and I know this, because there is nothing more binding than the call of freedom.

And that, is the only god the wingless know.)

-

Luffy cannot fly, and he cannot swim. He makes do with the only thing he can do, and runs and fights and claws for every precious bit of love and acceptance and adventure he can get.

He cannot fly.

He cannot soar to the heights that others go to.

But that will not stop him.

He is the man who will be King of the Pirates, and he does not need wings to be free.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i listened to 'a new horizon' from the starry musical on repeat for a solid two weeks with this idea rattling around in my mind, so i finally wrote it, so i think i got over my writer's block?? which is good! anyway this was written in the last like two hours. sorry for quality and absolutely NO proofreading!!
> 
> anyway drabble series again like i didn't have enough on my plate with esom. 
> 
> thats being updated still tho!
> 
> anyway enjoy this because i have many many many more ideas for this au!! thank you for reading <333
> 
> -whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


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